Thursday 9 November 2006 19.15 EST
First published on Thursday 9 November 2006 19.15 EST

BSkyB has often been called the Death Star by a TV industry convinced that it must use dark powers to crush competitors, yet it still comes as a surprise to find Darth Vader outside the office of Dawn Airey, head of channels and services at the dominant satellite group.

Going to examine the enormous model, I let out an involuntary gasp when I turn and find myself a few feet away from the galactic emperor himself. Rupert Murdoch, chairman and major shareholder, has arrived and is going through some board papers.

Airey, like a wicked pixie at times with her close-cropped hair and cheeky grin, lets out a hoot of laughter. "So, you've got your intro then."

After four years at Sky, many feel the former and formative chief executive of Channel Five disappeared into a black hole at Osterley, Sky's outer London headquarters. Funny, irreverent and knowing, the self-confessed media luvvie is aware of industry whispers. "There is a sense of being covered with Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility under the chief executive," she says. "But that's quite right. I'm not the CEO."

This interview is, however, partly a way for the woman who celebrates her 46th birthday next week to become more visible again. Her name has appeared in the papers recently, among the list of contenders for the still vacant post of ITV chief executive. Yet as of yesterday she had not been contacted by ITV officially or by its headhunters, and few believe she is now the broadcaster's first choice.

Rumours

It all seems a far cry from four years ago when Sky gazumped ITV just as she was about to start running its Network Centre. All she will say of the company that broadcasts some of her favourite shows, Coronation Street among them, is: "I am very fond of ITV, I started my career there and I worked there for just under 10 years. Whether or not I end my career there, who knows?"

Few industry insiders would put bets on Airey being at Sky next year, when her contract is up for renewal. Amid the speculation are rumours she will join an independent producer while Sky reappoints a chief operating officer.

She is too loyal to Sky - "a great company" - to discuss any plans but does little to dissuade me from the idea that she is likely to leave next year. "I don't quite know what I'm going to do next. It will be in the creative industries and it may well be something that surprises everyone in the way coming here did. But what that will be, I don't know."

Some believe America might be an option - "I've always thought I would work there but the opportunity just hasn't come up" - she stops me trying to guess. "You won't guess in a month of Sundays. It's a new model."

She is keen to clarify some points about her current role. One former Sky executive described it as possibly the toughest in the company, one that defeated many capable and talented people before her, Elisabeth Murdoch among them. She is responsible for all content apart from sport, including Sky One, Sky Movies and Artsworld. In February her role was expanded to fill part of the space left by the departing chief operating officer, Richard Freudenstein. As such she is responsible for the rollout of the company's successful, if nascent, broadband service as well as its mobile strategy and other platforms.

Yet externally, she is still largely judged on the performance of Sky One, which, like all mainstream channels, is losing audience share in an increasingly multi-channel world. It's a perception that has long irked her. "It's such a small part of what I do," sighs Airey. "I'm responsible for over 500 channels."

Her frustration with external perceptions occasionally spills over. On the day we meet, there has been a flurry of stories about ITV's interest or otherwise in Andy Duncan, the Channel 4 chief executive. "I try not to pass comment or be covetous of other people's press coverage and I'm certainly not covetous of Andy's," she says. "He's done good things at [Channel] 4. He has great PR ... But I have done a lot of things in the most commercial environment in UK broadcasting. Whoever decides the appropriate chief executive of ITV, one assumes they will look at the track record and not the press cuts and PR."

Of the long drawn-out process to replace Charles Allen, who announced he was leaving ITV in August, she says: "Who knows what's going on? You sort of feel it's rather medieval. If there's a full moon and an "r" in the month they might do something."

Such comments are typical of Airey, who has been known to shoot from the lip since her days at Five when she said the channel was all about "films, football and fucking". She has been more circumspect since then. Has working at Sky changed her? "No. If it had, I'd be really upset. Look, without question you have to reflect the values of the company you work for and Sky is a proper grown-up FTSE company and I can't shoot from the hip to the extent I used to. But I have the same joie de vivre as I ever had. I very occasionally set off bombs."

She admits she was a bit of an oddity when she arrived at Sky. "I came straight from the broadcasting establishment, a little bit of a luvvie, left-wing tendencies, I lived with a woman - all were things you wouldn't normally associate with Sky." Yet she is genuinely full of praise for the way Sky, and chief executive James Murdoch, welcomed her. "I think Sky has changed quite profoundly in the last three years, underneath James's leadership. Before that, it had been characterised as the Death Star."

Yet it is a Sky minder who stops the Guardian photographer snapping Darth Vader, evidence of the chief executive's enthusiasm for Star Wars. The company also increasingly sees technology and telecommunications companies, rather than traditional broadcasters, as rivals.

Insiders suggest that Dawn has had some effect on the atmosphere at Sky. She calls her office - a glass bowl with large, circular windows - the company's "bosom". It has a booze cabinet, chocolate store and a resident Buddha as well as a bank of TV screens. She describes it as "a bit chaotic, but actually quite structured. A little bit colourful and transparent. Just like me really!"

Personality

A "northerner", after spending her first seven years in Preston, who still considers herself a bit of a broadcasting outsider because of her personality and commercial focus, she cites one of the chief achievements as a "soft" one. "It's a far happier and more supportive place than it was."

Kevin Lygo, Channel 4's director of television who worked closely with Airey at Five, says: "Dawn is a wonderful person to work for. She's good fun and a laugh and once she appoints you, she is incredibly loyal and supportive."

She was enticed from Five, where she had a "blast", by the then chief executive Tony Ball. One issue that keeps popping up is that she gave up a CEO title. "When I left Five to come here it didn't cross my mind for a moment that not being a CEO would be an issue. And to be frank, I have far greater influence here than I ever had at Five."

She is proud of bringing more upmarket content to Sky. The third series of Lost, which Sky paid almost £1m an episode to snatch from Channel 4 and which is to start on November 19, shows off the company's multi-platform push. It will be offered on mobiles and high-definition TV, via multi-start and video on demand, as well as a plain old TV slot.

Airey started her career on the business side and she has deeply commercial instincts. She goes into sales mode once she realises I don't have Sky Broadband, at one point accusing me of having too much money to switch. She can occasionally be found at Acton shopping centre selling dishes. "I'm rather successful at it," she says and I'm not surprised.

After a daily morning gym workout, she works long hours, putting in 1.5 days most weekends. She does, however, find time to regularly entertain at the Oxfordshire weekend home she shares with her partner Jacquie, an executive producer at Sky. In March, the couple are expecting their first child. "She'll have to be a strong character, a product of the 21st century."

Airey has written a diary since taking over at Five 11 years ago and promises to publish "when I no longer want to work in broadcasting". That is unlikely to be for some time.

She says she has no regrets about working at Sky: "I don't like to think that if/when I leave Sky I need to go into rehab. Far from it. If/when I leave Sky I'll do so with an unbelievable affection for the company and a huge amount of knowledge that I would not have gained with any other broadcaster."

No regrets? "Absolutely none." How about her more controversial comments? "I never regret anything I've said. I always know what I'm doing and being deliberately provocative is good fun." With that, she lets out one of her trademark hoots of laughter.

CV

Born 15 November 1960

Raised in Preston of Liverpudlian parents, moved to Plymouth at seven but still considers herself a northerner

Educated at Kelly College and Girton College, Cambridge, where she read geography

1985 Management trainee at Central TV. "The only job I ever applied for was my first job at ITV. Actually, I applied for the BBC and the buggers rejected me"

1993 Controller of network children's and daytime programmes at ITV

1994 Controller of arts and entertainment at Channel 4

1996-2003 Director of programmes then chief executive of Channel Five

January 2003 Head of Sky Networks, responsible for all non-sports programming and ad revenues

February 2006 Managing director of channels and services, adding responsibility for Sky's content on broadband, video on demand and mobiles

Other jobs Non-executive director of easyJet and on the board of the International Emmy Awards